Recreational vehicles (RVs), such as travel trailers, fifth wheels, campers, various other types of trailers, motor homes, and the like, offer users the opportunity to escape the rigors of everyday life and explore the world we live in. In some cases, resembling a small home on wheels, RVs are capable of transporting and comfortably sheltering people for extended periods. One benefit of such an RV is to enhance the camping or traveling experience by providing the comforts of home away from home. Additionally, the occupant is given the option of braving the elements, commonly known as “roughing it,” or retreating to the protection afforded by the RV. Thus, the spirit of “roughing it” may be maintained without deprivation of the full camping experience.
Although freely mobile, as the size of RVs increase, the ease of handling tends to decrease. Additionally, RVs often have dimensional limits dictated by highway regulations. Further, other factors may limit the size of the RV (e.g., the capacity of the tow vehicle used to tow towable RVs or the engine size in motorized RVs). Responding to the need for more living space inside RVs, various RVs incorporate features such as pop-up tops and/or slide-out rooms for selectively expanding the living area. Designed to be used primarily when the RV is parked, these rooms are typically positioned in the interior of the RV during travel, and are moved outwardly when the RV is parked. Upon parking the RV, the slide-out rooms or compartments are moved horizontally to an extended position to increase the useable interior space of the vehicle.
As the size of RVs increase, there is a continual push to reduce the weight of the RV to be within the weight limits of the vehicle used to tow the RV in the case of towable RVs or within the weight limits of the chassis and engine in the case of motorized RVs. One way to reduce the overall weight of the RV is to reduce the size and/or weight of the frame. Frames are being used which are smaller, lower to the ground, and have excess structural material removed through the use of strategically placed holes in the frame members.
The use of lightweight frames has presented a number of challenges to providing a suitable slide-out system that can be coupled to the frame and used to move the slide-out room between the extended and retracted position. In conventional systems, a hole is cut through the frame rails of the RV so that the slide-out system can pass through and be mounted to the frame rail. However, because excess structural material has already been removed from lightweight RV frames, cutting an additional hole in the frame may significantly weaken the frame—even to the point of failure.
The challenges stemming from the use of a lightweight frame are more pronounced when the slide-out system is used to provide a flush floor slide-out room—i.e., the slide-out room and the interior of the RV have a flush floor when the slide-out room is extended. Conventional slide-out systems are able to create a flush floor slide-out room by sloping the system used to move the slide-out room downward. However, such a system may be unsuitable for use with lightweight frames because the pre-existing holes in the frame rails may not accommodate the sloped shape of the slide-out system. Furthermore, since many lightweight systems sit closer to the ground, the sloped shape of the slide-out system may cause the slide-out system to be unduly close to the ground when the slide-out compartment is extended. Also, the range of travel is limited to some degree because the sloped shape of the slide-out system makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the slide-out system to pass through a hole in the frame rails on both sides of the RV. A slide-out system that could pass through holes in both frames rails would allow the slide-out compartment to move outward a larger distance.
Further challenges arise in stopping the slide-out compartment in the retracted position or the extended position so that the slide-out compartment provides a suitable seal with the fixed wall of the RV but does not apply so much pressure to the side wall of the RV that it may cause structural fatigue or other problems. Conventional slide-out systems often use universal circuit breakers (UCB) to stop the movement of the slide-out compartment. When the slide-out compartment contacts the fixed wall of the RV, the current draw to the motor increases to the point that it trips the UCB. Unfortunately, this system suffers from a number of problems. Slide-out compartments may vary significantly in weight so that one UCB may be appropriate for one slide-out compartment, but be too small or large for another slide-out compartment. This may be true even if the size of the slide-out compartment remains the same but the particular floor plan is different (e.g., one floorplan may have two recliners in the slide-out compartment and another floor plan may have only one). In cold weather, the lubricants in the motor and the slide-out system may be more viscous resulting in greater friction and greater current draw by the motor, which may trip the UCB unnecessarily. In hot weather, the opposite problem may be present in that the UCB may not be tripped until the slide-out compartment has put too much pressure on the fixed walls of the RV. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved way of stopping the slide-out compartment in the retracted and/or the extended position.
It should be appreciated that the claims define the scope of the subject matter for which protection is sought, regardless of whether any of the aforementioned disadvantages are overcome by the subject matter recited in the claims. Thus, a claim should not be interpreted to be limited to a particular embodiment due to the previous discussion of some of the shortcoming of conventional slide-out systems, especially since, in many situations, conventional slide-out systems suffered from multiple drawbacks, not all of which (or even any of which) may be alleviated using the claimed subject matter.